Permanent crisis at Fukushima

Hundreds of tons of radioactively contaminated water leak from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors every day. That water has to go somewhere and the operator of the plant is running out of places to store it. So the suggestion has been made that it be dumped in the sea.

At the scene of the Fukushima nuclear disaster they can’t clean anything without getting something else dirty.

The plant’s operator TEPCO has a decontamination system at Fukushima called ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System). It takes the contaminated water and filters out most of the radioactivity except for tritium. This “tritiated” water is then stored in tanks.

The problem is that ALPS hasn’t been the most reliable of systems at Fukushima. Of the three systems in use, two had to be shut down for repairs earlier this year when it was found they were being corroded by the very water they were supposed to decontaminate. Last week one of them was found to be leaking hydrochloric and was shut down again.

It’s estimated it will take at least seven years to partially decontaminate the water already being stored.

Japan’s nuclear watchdog the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) and the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have both suggested in the last few days that the water be dumped in the ocean.

The problem is, TEPCO and the NRA are not to be trusted. They have betrayed people’s trust too many times since the nuclear crisis began.

And what about the IAEA? It’s difficult to trust them either. It’s a pro-nuclear organization whose job it is to protect the nuclear industry not the environment or people’s health.

This is what we’ve come to because both TEPCO and the Japanese government have continued to fail at bringing the Fukushima disaster under control. Now they’re taking the easy way out – an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to the radioactive contamination their cover-ups and incompetence caused.

Dumping massive amounts of radioactively contaminated water into the ocean is unacceptable. Although the ocean covers nearly two-thirds of the surface of the Earth, it is still vulnerable to human influences, including dumping of waste. These contaminates can have a serious impact on marine life and ecosystems. Toxins and contaminants in the ocean find their way into the food chain, and into our bodies.

Because the water is partially decontaminated, doesn’t mean it’s safe.

In 1995, the Global Waste Survey Final Report concluded that the dumping of waste anywhere in the ocean is the same as dumping it anywhere on land. The difference between industrial wastes and nuclear materials is that nuclear waste remains radioactive for decades. Although nuclear proponents claim the risk to human health is small, the long-term effects of nuclear dumping are still unknown. If we wouldn’t dump it on our lands, why should we dump it in our oceans?

And after they’ve done it once, they’ll do it again and again until dumping contaminated water into the ocean will become standard operating procedure at Fukushima.

Cargo ships at sea, found to be deliberately dumping waste overboard, are banned from doing business in many major international markets. It’s about time those laws applied to the likes of TEPCO.

Calls from international assistance in dealing with the Fukushima crisis came too late from the Japanese government and such help has yet to appear in any meaningful way.

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(Unregistered) Mia12
says:

This is what happens when corporations put profit above all. Addressing the problem in a proper way requires a significant amount of money spent. B...

This is what happens when corporations put profit above all. Addressing the problem in a proper way requires a significant amount of money spent. But then again, what is more important, our health and well-being of or planet, a safe place for our children and the children of our children to live in, or to find ways to cut corners and save money for profit's sake? We know what the answer is.

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(Unregistered) Beppe
says:

What comes first? People or profits?
For Toshiba the answer is clear: Toshiba and 17 subcontractors have just been, well, wrist slapped by the T...

What comes first? People or profits?
For Toshiba the answer is clear: Toshiba and 17 subcontractors have just been, well, wrist slapped by the Tomioka labour standards supervision office for having their employees work overtime more than the maximum allowed (2 hours daily).
The 2 hours limit for nuclear workers is devised to limit their exposition to radiation.
Shameless Toshiba officials stated that they did not know that meetings and wait are also subject to the limit (wait time and meeting time is, of course, working time...).
(2013 Dec. 12 Jiji Press)

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(Unregistered) Lauren
says:

Will you support our campaign? We are calling for International intervention at Fukushima. We have petitions and cafepress gear. We do not believe add...

Will you support our campaign? We are calling for International intervention at Fukushima. We have petitions and cafepress gear. We do not believe addressing the petitions to the standard recipients will do anything, since as you are saying in this article, most of them are involved in nuclear cover-ups and benefit from the relative unregulated status of the nuclear industry. We're thinking of addressing the petition to the Elders, an organization comprised of people outside of political or economic influence, to ask them to put together a group of scientists and engineers urgently to address the problem, funded by every country who has nuclear power in proportion to how much power each country uses and how much waste each country produces. This is urgent! We cannot let them dump this water into the sea. This campaign could be successful with the help of an organization like you.

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(Unregistered) shawoot
says:

YES! Intl. intervention might be the best we can hope for. All hands on deck. Unite the peoples voice to break the media blackout, end state secrecy, ...

YES! Intl. intervention might be the best we can hope for. All hands on deck. Unite the peoples voice to break the media blackout, end state secrecy, and get this corrupt industry via TEPCO off the job.

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(Unregistered) Marushka
says:

add 1 gallon of nuclear waste to 1,000 gallons of ocean and you have 1,001 gallons of nuclear waste.

This is not going to be 'solved&...

add 1 gallon of nuclear waste to 1,000 gallons of ocean and you have 1,001 gallons of nuclear waste.

This is not going to be 'solved' by UN... IAEA is pro-nuclear since its inception! IAEA has been advising since day 1 as have governments and corporations around the world. The problem is that there is NO solution, NO known technology. As Physicist Michio Kaku pointed out, text books end prior to any notion that meltdowns or accidents could occur. This is all unprecedented, but it has always been a risk... that governments choose to take while minimizing the ongoing apocalypse at the cellular level.

Nuclear is a death industry - no emissions are safe - all exposure has risk. Low level chronic exposure destabilizes all life, scrambles genomic heritage and deteriorates all matter... all matter ... whether life forms, pipe, concrete, steel.
END NUCLEAR to preserve life before none exists anymore.
Global chronic diseases have spread and increased since nuclear everything began... STOP while we still have a chance at survival!

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(Unregistered) Beppe
says:

The Japanese government decided to guarantee Tepco solvibility so that the latter can keep borrowing 1,000,000,000,000 yen (very roughly, 10 bln USD) ...

The Japanese government decided to guarantee Tepco solvibility so that the latter can keep borrowing 1,000,000,000,000 yen (very roughly, 10 bln USD) of loans from banks (source: Asahi TV, Hodo Station, tonight).

Why are banks allowed to keep profiting from Tepco rather than taking the losses that usually one has to face when a creditor goes bust? Why is the Japanese government subsidizing not only nuclear industry but banks as well?

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(Unregistered) Beppe
says:

I am posting the following verbatim, hoping the authors will not mind.
-------------------------
Failure to Prevent Escape Cut Water Injec...

I am posting the following verbatim, hoping the authors will not mind.
-------------------------
Failure to Prevent Escape Cut Water Injected into Fukushima Reactors

Tokyo, Dec. 13 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday that its failure to prevent escape from pipes spoiled cooling water injections by fire engines to reactor cores at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant immediately after its accident on March 11, 2011.
Because valves on pipes connected to the reactor pressure vessels were left open, the water injected to cool the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors may have escaped and ran into other linked devices, such as condensers and storage tanks, and not have fully reached the reactor cores, TEPCO said.
TEPCO admitted the possibility that the failure speeded up the unfolding disaster at the plant struck by the huge earthquake and tsunami but said it was difficult to close the valves at the time because of high levels of radiation.
"I think it was difficult at the time to make a decision in a short period of time and go to close the valves," Managing Executive Officer Takafumi Anegawa told a press conference.
Since the company has yet to learn how much water went to unintended locations, it will continue its examination.
--------------------------------
The article does not provide the exact timing but I suspect that Tepco could not remotely operate the valves because they had no electricity available after the emergency batteries were exhausted. Just imagine having to sneak in some recess of the plant to find and manually operate a valve at the light of a torch while radioactivity is escaping from the reactor.
Just imagine that an earthquake or a flood could hit the nuclear power plant nearest to you.

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(Unregistered) J.
says:

I grew up in Washington State, home of Hanford and the beginning of the Nuclear horror story. I spent the first seven years of my life on the Columbia...

I grew up in Washington State, home of Hanford and the beginning of the Nuclear horror story. I spent the first seven years of my life on the Columbia River. I was told that it used to hold the largest Salmon runs in the world. I was also told that they all died off because of all the electric dams. I also know that Hanford has been leaking into the ground water since it was built and that the American Federal government currently spends over 2 billion annually to try to keep it contained.

It is time to go nuclear on shutting nuclear down. Keep up the great work Green Peace.